MUTARE- Government has been urged to amend the Labour Act to ensure it provides clear redress mechanisms for victims of sexual harassment in the private sector.
By Donald Nyarota
The call was made by Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA), senior legal officer, Nyaradzo Mutonhori, who said the current law was failing to provide adequate support to victims of sexual harassment in the private sector.
Mutonhori said there should be amendments which clearly define sexual harassment, without merely qualifying it as an unfair labour practice as well as putting a grievance mechanism.
“In terms of the Labour Act, a key gap on the issue of gender and anti-sexual harassment, if you look at the Act this is classified under unfair labour practices.
“As a result, the remedies that are there are not adequate to carter for survivors of sexual harassment at the workplace especially in the private sector, for instance in the public service they then have regulations which explain sexual harassment in detail.
“But we feel there are a lot of thongs that are left hanging if we continue to have a Labour Act that is insufficient in terms of how it addresses issues of sexual harassment in the work place.
“We feel that the laws should go beyond classifying this under unfair labour practices without giving detailed definitions and providing a redress mechanisms particularly pyscho-social support for victims of sexual harassment,” said Mutonhori.
ZELA is currently capacitating workers in the mining sector through the Zimbabwe Allied Diamond Workers Union (ZIDAWU) on labour rights, under the broad objectives of promoting responsible investment.
Mutonhori said the labour rights training programmes are aimed at capacitating workers, promoting responsible supply chains in the mining sector to meet international standards and benchmarks to promote investment in the sector.
“We are training the members of ZIDAWU in line with the Constitution and the Labour Act, and also to make sure that they have structures to address grievances at their workplaces related to labour rights matters.
“We are also empowering workers representatives so that they are able to give advice to their fellow colleagues at their workplaces.
“We are promoting responsible supply chains in the gold and diamond value chains in line with the Kimberly Process and other international standards like the OECD guidelines, so that we have clean gold and clean diamonds to attract investors into the country,” said Mutonhori.
